We find our way to climb
like birds, like vines,
counter thrust to the weight of us,
oblivious of time
This aspiration
breathes through us constantly
whether we know it or not,
whether or not we’re trying —
we will go higher
in natural response
to what looks up within
and always rises.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 30, 2018
Could be a lot of that stuff
I’ll throw under the bed
and not think about for awhile
Maybe there’s a way of thinking about things
that is much clearer than all my habits.
The need, it seems, is to keep those habits
from jumping all over the new thoughts
Could be a practice of silence
and meek observation
with dew all around my eyes
reminding me with each blink
what it is to be new
will help.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 29, 2018
I don’t even feel like looking
at the end of the year —
I have no urging towards retrospectives.
I don’t want to look at next year, either —
I have no interest in resolutions
There will be things in the year,
events and growth and changes,
but I have no sense I can control them.
They will come through like storms
or sprout like seeds,
I will await them
but they will take me by surprise —
I have no view of them but this one,
on the ground, peering through vines and branches,
taking the next step.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 28, 2018
There is a truth I can’t tell you,
so I’ll wait
to hear you tell it to me,
knowing you will do so,
as it is the best news
of a moment, a lifetime,
and you will find it wonderful
and unsuppressible
It will pour out of you
like birdsong
and I will rejoice.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2018
It is a simple thing
being here, in the land of reflection
There may be refractions,
bright angles, shafts of light
coming in from unexpected places —
they magnify the radiance,
they show its different facets
Sometimes I can trace them,
sometimes not. Yet simply
I am filled up with the glow
and simply
I am satisfied.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 26, 2018
Well, we had to do the best we knew,
we had to bring the gifts we had —
what we understood,
what we experienced
and thus believed
It took the whole of us —
there wasn’t enough light
in any sliver of our selves
for us to see by, for us to feel
the magnitude of life
We had to wrap our arms around it all,
even what was flawed,
even what had been rejected
by various external standards
When we embraced us all,
there was enough light
for us to comprehend
what we are made of. From there
we had enough abundance
to find our way home.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2018
I let myself float
in the golden light and sound
of Christmas — bright peace
suffuses me, everyone
is haloed. This liquid
dissolves time, at least
for a moment, and I travel
through the years, along
the glow lines,
reaching back
to all the Christmases
where this illumination
punctuates the year.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 23, 2018
I’d rather have no drama
and nothing to say
than something made up,
claiming attention
but lacking the tone
that fills all the spaces
with presence
I’d rather wait silent
and so make an opening —
place for a thing that’s just forming
to gather, to grow, to get strong,
and send its sweet tendrils
in untouched directions
to cleave the clear air with its song.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2018
Let my thought lift
like vapor at morning light,
separating, rising from the earth,
let my concerns disperse
in the sun’s clear radiance
I don’t need heaviness,
I don’t need worry,
don’t need to hold on to everything —
That which will bless me,
that which I am,
rests light as sunshine
on my head.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 21, 2018
Maybe there isn’t an easy way.
Maybe my journey forward
is long and hard. My joy, though,
is that there is a way,
and I can take it on
Today the winter solstice sun
has shined its gift, benevolent,
while rays of clouds assembled
the day before the storm
The sea, surprising in its paleness,
has given illustration:
this is the light, so live in it,
filled, transparent, humble, vast
The rain that comes tomorrow,
will offer its own gifts. If I can stay
reflective, true, responsive, kind,
I’ll know where next to set my foot
and that will be enough.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2018